Golden Lane Housing Limited (4803) - Regulatory Judgement: 15 January 2025
Updated 15 January 2025
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2025
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulatory-judgement-golden-lane-housing-limited/golden-lane-housing-limited-4803-regulatory-judgement-15-january-2025
Our Judgement
| Grade/Judgement | Change | Date of assessment | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer | Not assessed yet | ||
| Governance | G1 Our judgement is that the landlord meets our governance requirements. |
Assessed and unchanged | January 2025 |
| Viability | V1 Our judgement is that the landlord meets our viability requirements and has the financial capacity to deal with a wide range of adverse scenarios. |
Regrade | January 2025 |
Reason for publication
We are publishing a regulatory judgement for Golden Lane Housing Limited (Golden Lane Housing) following a stability check and responsive engagement completed in January 2025.
This regulatory judgement confirms a governance grading of G1 and a financial viability regrade to V1.
Prior to this regulatory judgement, the governance and financial viability grades for Golden Lane Housing were last updated in November 2023 following a stability check, to confirm grades of G1 and V2.
Summary of the decision
Our judgement is that Golden Lane Housing meets our governance requirements. From the stability check review, there is no evidence to indicate a change in governance grading is required. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a G1 grade for Golden Lane Housing.
Our judgement is that Golden Lane Housing meets our financial viability requirements and has the financial capacity to deal with a wide range of adverse scenarios, having reduced its exposure to significant increases in interest costs. Based on this assessment, we have therefore concluded a V1 regrade for Golden Lane Housing.
How we reached our judgement
We carried out a stability check review to assess whether there are any material risks that may result in a change to Golden Lane Housing’s financial viability or governance gradings, as part of our annual stability check programme. We also carried out responsive engagement that focused on Golden Lane Housing’s viability grading. The stability check review and responsive engagement were completed in January 2025.
Our regulatory judgement is based on all the relevant information we obtained during the stability check and responsive engagement, as well as analysis of information provided by Golden Lane Housing in its regulatory returns and other regulatory activity. This includes financial plans, financial statements and other regulatory returns.
In assessing Golden Lane Housing’s governance grade as part of the stability check, our work was limited to verifying that the information contained in its regulatory returns did not appear inconsistent with its existing published governance grade.
We have not yet assessed this landlord against the consumer standards.
Summary of findings
Governance – G1 - January 2025
From the stability check review, there is no evidence to indicate a change in governance grading is required.
Viability – V1 - January 2025
In November 2022 following a stability check and responsive engagement, we published a regulatory judgement that regraded Golden Lane Housing’s viability grade as it had experienced a significant rise in the interest costs relating to its current and future debt funding. Coupled with inflationary pressures, this reduced the capacity within Golden Lane Housing’s business plan to deliver its development plans and to respond to further adverse events.
Based on evidence gained from the 2024 stability check review and responsive engagement, we have assurance that the materiality of these risk exposures has reduced. Golden Lane Housing has put in place further funding, and its plan now demonstrates increased forecast financial capacity, based on reasonable assumptions for inflation and interest rates.
Golden Lane Housing meets the financial viability requirements of the Governance and Financial Viability Standard and its financial plans are consistent with, and support, its financial strategy. Golden Lane Housing has an adequately funded business plan, sufficient security and is forecast to continue to meet its financial covenants.
Background to the judgement
About the landlord
Golden Lane Housing is a community benefit society and a provider of specialised supported housing for people with learning disabilities and autistic people.
Golden Lane Housing is the only RSH registered entity and there are no unregistered subsidiaries.
Golden Lane Housing delivers bespoke community-based housing to around 2,900 tenants in 1,300 properties nationwide. It reported a turnover of £36.6m for the year ending 31 March 2024 and employs the full-time equivalent of 122 staff. Golden Lane Housing’s development strategy includes a £10m per annum acquisition and adaptation programme.
Our role and regulatory approach
We regulate for a viable, efficient, and well governed social housing sector able to deliver quality homes and services for current and future tenants.
We regulate at the landlord level to drive improvement in how landlords operate. By landlord we mean a registered provider of social housing. These can either be local authorities, or private registered providers (other organisations registered with us such as non-profit housing associations, co-operatives, or profit-making organisations).
We set standards which state outcomes that landlords must deliver. The outcomes of our standards include both the required outcomes and specific expectations we set. Where we find there are significant failures in landlords which we consider to be material to the landlord’s delivery of those outcomes, we hold them to account. Ultimately this provides protection for tenants’ homes and services and achieves better outcomes for current and future tenants. It also contributes to a sustainable sector which can attract strong investment.
We have a different role for regulating local authorities than for other landlords. This is because we have a narrower role for local authorities and the Governance and Financial Viability Standard, and Value for Money Standard do not apply. Further detail on which standards apply to different landlords can be found on our standards page.
We assess the performance of landlords through inspections and by reviewing data that landlords are required to submit to us. In Depth Assessments (IDAs) were one of our previous assessment processes, which are now replaced by our new inspections programme from 1 April 2024. We also respond where there is an issue or a potential issue that may be material to a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards. We publish regulatory judgements that describe our view of landlords’ performance with our standards. We also publish grades for landlords with more than 1,000 social housing homes.
The Housing Ombudsman deals with individual complaints. When individual complaints are referred to us, we investigate if we consider that the issue may be material to a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards.
For more information about our approach to regulation, please see Regulating the standards.